As a gear head, I had come to a full cycle. Chronologically, I started my digital gears from Lumix FZ30, Canon 40D, 5DMK2, 1DMK3, Lumix GF-1 and now Fuji X-10. As I was holding, admiring the beauty of my Fuji X-10 and pondering upon the gears that I had; I feel so light and refreshing. A feeling that has alluded me for a long time. The X-10 bridges the digital divide, fuses the classic nostalgic feeling of photography with state of the art technology. Hmmm, I like it.
Much has been said about the camera but I would like to also mention that Fuji X-10 is an interesting tool for macro photography that bring new photographic possibilities to you. Lets look at the following attributes and you can decide whether it make a lot of sense to use the X-10 for macro photography.
a) AF - hey man, AF (macro mode and super macro) works. Fast enough and accurate but I would not use it for action/ sports photography.
b) MF - just when I thought that the Fuji X-10 MF implementation was idiotic, I realised that AF is not fool proofed. You will need MF for certain scene and also for critical focussing. Two key techniques you can consider practicing is using the "Focus Aid Zoom In" function with the 'rocking' forward /backward focussing technique. This overcome the X-10 badly implemented command dial manual focus by wire which does not give you any tactile feel of focussing.
c) The sensor size. This is a gem, and inherently, the smaller sensor size gives a better Depth of Field.
d) Built in Flash system. It was said that Fuji has a very intelligent flash system, and I reckoned that the flash system is well implemented. By fixing a diffuser near the tip of the len and forcing the flash to fire (super macro mode not supported), exposure is usually quite good. This can be further enhanced for hand held photography when you set the camera exposure to manual (example setting: ISO 400, A=f/8 and t=250) and let the flash automation kicks in (similar to what I did with my Canon / ETTL Flash setup).
e) Compatibility with Raynox DCR150 via the Fuji lens hood (LH-X10). This partially overcome the limitation of the super macro mode (due to flash is disabled).
f) Above all, X-10 is like "Zen" ; simple and light.
"Studio Wasp"
Canon 5DMK2 + EF 100mm f/2.8 L IS USM Macro with Raynox DCR150 + 580EXII. Tips: I had to unlearn what I’d learned about shooting macro with tripod. Believe me, finding and focussing tiny moving target with the camera stuck on a tripod is a real pain and headache. How about shooting hand held + flash and manual focus? A technique I used is to set the lens to manual focus (set to minimum focus distance) and start rocking backward and forward to get the target in focus. I'm not suggesting that you tango around and look like a fool. 'Rock' slowly and when the target is in focus, fire a few shots continuously! I also prefer manual exposure for consistency especially for flash photography. The E-TTL flash does the magic here, so try to use it when possible. The E-TTL flash exposes the foreground automatically. PS: Do not get me wrong, if you can use a tripod and track a moving target, it would be optimal but for me it is hard and just me! Another thing to mention is this shot was taken in broad daylight and the fact that the background is dark is because I used a small aperture (large f #), fast shutter speed and E-TTL flash. The E-TTL exposed the foreground (the hornet) and aperture/shutter speed combo kept the background under exposed. You got the idea of "Studio Hornet...eh.. Wasp" now?
Bangkok
